Works and Words, 1979 : Manifesting Eastern European Film and/as Art in Amsterdam

Abstract

In 1979, Works and Words, an art event held in Amsterdam, showcased the dynamic contemporary art scenes of Czechoslovakia, Hungary, Poland, and Yugoslavia. Its organizers sought to blur disciplinary boundaries with a thorough overview of “Central Europe’s” recent artistic output and included performances, lectures, video installations, photographs, and film screenings. This chapter explores how curatorial, organizational, and institutional decisions related to the film program negotiated experimental film’s in-betweenness, notably spatial divisions between realms of cinema and the arts. As the chapter argues, considering these issues in the context of an ambitious transnational film event staged in the West cannot be separated from the complicated contexts of state-socialist cultural production and distribution that crucially informed the implementation of Works and Words.